Conspiracy Theories, Skepticism, and Critical Thinking

Nesta Webster is a woman. Nesta Webster is a writer. Nesta Webster is writing at a time when women in the UK could vote only if they were over the age of 30, were property owners/renters of a location of a certain value (or married to person that does), and not subject to any kind of legal incapacity, or were graduates of a voting constituency. At the same period of time, men, had to be 21 unless they were veterans of WWI in which case they could vote at 19. Webster is writing at a time when women are the subservient class in the UK. Where is Webster going to land on the equality question? Well, she’s not going to land in a good place, that’s for sure. Webster is going to take the contradictory position that all women like her—Phyllis Schlafly, Margaret Thatcher, Megyn Kelley—women should stay home and be wives and mothers; but we should ignore the fact that Webster is not any of those things and is telling us how we should think and act. We’re at another revolution in France and Webs...

 We’ve arrived at the Franco-Prussian war, a war that Webster has told us is the German’s fault because they tricked Napolean III into declaring it. That Bismark is a crafty one. She wants to implicate Marx because he’s a Jew, a German, and a Socialist; but it’s going to take a lot of work to do that. Perhaps, somewhere, there exists some letters or a manuscript where Marx and Engles were all about the German conquering of France. Maybe they’ve written a book about how France sucks, and really the best thing for the working classes is the elimination of all those extra vowels the French use. That would take the research of a proper historian, luckily for us, Webster isn’t a proper historian. Pay attention to what she does here. She writes that the “ French branch of the internationale in London actually denounced him as an agent of Bismarck. ” Our first evidence is an accusation by someone in London. We have no citation for this. “ Marx wrote to Engles on August 3, 1870, saying th...

 A new chapter begins, this one titled “The Revolution of 1871.” Every chapter, for those of you not following along, has a little indication of the subjects being talked about underneath the chapter titles. We know that this chapter is going to discuss “The Franco-Prussian War” — Internationalism — Karl Marx, pan-Germanist —The Commune — Conflict between Marx and Bakunin — and the End of the Internationale. The last entry is odd, because we just did that in the chapter on the Internationale. Apparently, we’re going to retread old ground. Notice what is missing from that list: a revolution of 1871. Unless she is going to make the case that the Franco-Prussian war is the Revolution, an odd case considering the war ends in January of 1871, I don’t see a revolution here. “ What then of its Internationalism? How far was the brotherhood of man which had constituted one its fundamental doctrines to avail as a barrier against militarism?” She gives us a fair point; was the Internationale ...

 This chapter was supposed to be about the Internationale, the socialist workers association; but instead, it’s just been Webster telling us about her weird historical crush on Mikhail Bakunin. We left about here, “ Bakunin and his chief disciple Netchaieff started a society on precisely the lines of the Illuminati. ” I know it’s pedantic, but the phrase “along the lines” seems like someone is trying too hard to sound smart. I’m being petty, but she’s a fascist and it’s something that makes them very mad. She explains, “ The plan of such conspirators has always been to envelop one secret society in another on the system of a nest of Chinese boxes, the outer one large and visible, the inner ones dwindling down to the tiny, almost invisible cell that contains the secret.” I’ve never heard of this system before. I get what she’s going for and perhaps it’s just my cultural ignorance—but Russian nesting dolls is the more common analogy and one with much more accessibility. Plus, you she...

 After having spent an inordinate amount of time on the Anarchist Bakunin, we move back to Karl Marx—the Socialist, and also Jew because Webster needs to point that out to us. We have to keep one important thing in mind: that is Webster has offered no refutation of Marx’s “Socialism.” She’s not addressed Bakunin’s “Anarchism.” She’s using these terms as villains, but we haven’t been told why they are worse than the status quo. Normally, I would have to offer some defenses of 19th century Socialism or at least put it into context; but I don’t need to do that because Webster isn’t giving me anything to work with. The only context we need to know is that Webster is writing at a time when Socialists are making strides in England, the Industrial revolution has highlighted the class division, and the entire world economy is going to flounder because of WWI and its aftermath. Webster needs someone to blame and she’s going to blame Marx. Webster’s villains are fairly obvious. We would get ...

 What we know about Webster is that she’s a fascist and wants a totalitarian government. This is the only way that we can make sense of her contradictions. She spent the last several pages, and the last chapter; describing how the Jewish plot was to institute socialism. We ran into a bit of a difficulty because she’s not clear who is in charge. Is it the Jewish Socialists or is it the Illuminati and the Creed of Weishaupt? If they were doing the same thing this would be minor pedantry. It would be a case of me not knowing whether to use the red yarn or the blue yarn; but Webster throws a wrench in that, “ Meanwhile, Illuminism had continued to develop along the line of Anarchy.” Develop along the line of anarchy is one of those contradictory sentences. How are they developing a system of anti-system? These are questions she never considers because she knows that the type of person that is reading her book (and believing it unlike us). It’s a fallacy of composition. It doesn’t work ...